To avoid cult mode, try to avoid the local jargon. That will help you keep some distance by not turning on your slogan-loyalty loop. I’ve avoided this because I remember when this topic space was young, none of these sites existed and this sort of thing was still the stuff of excited conversation among college students. It’s nice to see it all laid out in various places, but it will never appear to me as the work of monumental genius it does to some people.
One of the things Yudkowsky has done very well is coin memorable phrases for questions about cognitive bias or poor reasoning. Terms like “true rejection” are great mnemonics. But there is also a danger—which Yudkowsky himself would recognize—of forming a group identity around this patois.
That’s the jargon I’m talking about. You should think twice before adopting these terms when writing or speaking.
This sounds like a very good piece of advice. A slight problem is that some of the jargon is very useful for expressing things that otherwise would be hard to express. But, I’ll try to be conscious about it.
A litany I repeat to myself when learning new topics is that: “One must be be able to teach the class to learn the lesson.”
By being able to explain the science of heuristics and biases in your own terms, citing LessWrong only when absolutely necessary you internalize concepts and relationships that make the research more tangible for you.
Yes, this should work. With (hard) sciency stuff I actually do this. For example, after finishing the Quantum Physics sequence (and some reading of my own afterwards) I did a series of lectures about “the Intuitive Quantum World” here in the office.
I need to find some audience, who would be interested in the more general topics that I learn here on LessWrong. And of course, I would need to read a lot to have a real deep understanding. But yes, this is a very good answer to my question!
To avoid cult mode, try to avoid the local jargon. That will help you keep some distance by not turning on your slogan-loyalty loop. I’ve avoided this because I remember when this topic space was young, none of these sites existed and this sort of thing was still the stuff of excited conversation among college students. It’s nice to see it all laid out in various places, but it will never appear to me as the work of monumental genius it does to some people.
Are there any particularly nasty bits you can think of?
One of the things Yudkowsky has done very well is coin memorable phrases for questions about cognitive bias or poor reasoning. Terms like “true rejection” are great mnemonics. But there is also a danger—which Yudkowsky himself would recognize—of forming a group identity around this patois.
That’s the jargon I’m talking about. You should think twice before adopting these terms when writing or speaking.
This sounds like a very good piece of advice. A slight problem is that some of the jargon is very useful for expressing things that otherwise would be hard to express. But, I’ll try to be conscious about it.
A litany I repeat to myself when learning new topics is that: “One must be be able to teach the class to learn the lesson.”
By being able to explain the science of heuristics and biases in your own terms, citing LessWrong only when absolutely necessary you internalize concepts and relationships that make the research more tangible for you.
Yes, this should work. With (hard) sciency stuff I actually do this. For example, after finishing the Quantum Physics sequence (and some reading of my own afterwards) I did a series of lectures about “the Intuitive Quantum World” here in the office.
I need to find some audience, who would be interested in the more general topics that I learn here on LessWrong. And of course, I would need to read a lot to have a real deep understanding. But yes, this is a very good answer to my question!